Keywords: railway, switches & crossings, turnout, 3D finite element model, multibody simulation, dynamic vehicle–track interaction, structural requirements.

Structural requirements for railway crossing panel design are proposed. These include dynamic load scenarios established from field measurements and structural load limits for the crossing rail, sleepers and maximum allowed vertical contact stress on the ballast surface. Using a simulation environment with two track models of varying detail, the structural load limits are challenged using the dynamic load scenarios. The two-layer track models include stock rails and sleepers represented by beam elements and a crossing rail represented by either 3D solid elements or beam elements. Linear bushings are used for the rail fastenings and bi-linear bushings for the ballast to allow for potentially voided sleepers. The applied load scenarios are established by combining measured data from scanned hollow worn wheel profiles, scanned crossing rail geometries, and sleeper-ballast voids extracted by calibrating a track model to measured sleeper accelerations. The study shows that the highest dynamic wheel-rail contact loading is achieved for a geometry where a nominal crossing rail geometry (virgin rail profile) is combined with a hollow worn wheel profile. The study provides an understanding of what field conditions the crossing panel could be subjected to before the loading exceeds the load limits of the components. It is foreseen that the data presented in this paper can be used for optimisation of crossing panel design while considering dynamic loading.

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